Nic at Night (Nic fit/aluren)

[Weapon X]

3 aluren
1 natural order
1 questing beast
1 collector ouphe
1 leovold, emissary of trest
1 Atraxa, grand unifier
3 veteran explorer
2 endurance
1 laboratory maniac
4 ice-fang coatl
3 uro, titan of natures wrath
3 cavern harpy
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 force of will
2 cabal therapy
3 diabolic intent

3 polluted delta
2 verdant catacombs
3 misty rainforest
2 snow covered forest
3 snow covered island
1 snow covered swamp
1 dryad arbor
1 underground sea
2 tropical island
1 bayou

Sideboard
2 assassins trophy
1 abrupt decay
1 force of vigor
2 thoughtseize
2 force of negation
2 carpet of flowers
1 energy flux
2 surgical extraction
1 brazen borrower
1 grafdiggers cage


Played this pile tonight. Felt like it had potential. Simply turning bad cards into something useful was great on top of a beat down plan. Think gsz may have to find a way in. The natural order option was also extremely useful for me during our tournament. Atraxa outside of just winning the game normally, let me get aluren piles for back up with protection. Biggest down side was that a lot of the cards felt durdly until they were winning the game. That’s the biggest weak point.

Definitely an idea that will need more exploration.

[FTW]

Interesting Aluren variant. How did it do against Orcish Bowmasters? Did many opponents have Bowmasters?

Why Lab Man instead of Thassa's Oracle? Oracle has more use pre-combo. Also you won't need to draw your whole deck. You can leave 2 cards left in case opponent has some trick.

Orcish Bowmasters is very strong in Aluren as a potential wincon (and to kill enemy Bowmasters/hatebears).

Cavern Harpy + Orcish Bowmasters -> lose 1 life: deal 1 damage to any target & amass 1

If you combine that with another card, you can offset the lifeloss:
Cavern Harpy + Niambi, Esteemed Speaker + Orcish Bowmasters -> infinite damage & infinite life

Cavern Harpy + Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath + Orcish Bowmasters -> gain X life, draw X cards, deal X damage, amass X (X limited by library size)


Now if you have something like Recruiter of the Guard then there's a 1-card Aluren combo (just needs Recruiter to go off):
Recruiter of the Guard -> Niambi, Esteemed Speaker (return Recruiter)
Recruiter -> Cavern Harpy (return Niambi & Harpy) -> Niambi (return Recruiter) -> Harpy (return Niambi & Harpy)
Recruiter -> Orcish Bowmasters -> Niambi (return Bowmasters) -> Harpy (return Niambi & Bowmasters)
Keep replaying Bowmasters -> Niambi -> Harpy

You just need a package like
3-4 Orcish Bowmasters
4 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Niambi, Esteemed Speaker
1 Samwise the Stouthearted (Samwise is a backup if Recruiter or Niambi gets killed in response before you get Harpy)

The advantage of a combo like that is that Bowmasters is strong outside the combo, while the traditional creatures like Cavern Harpy, Parasitic Strix and Ice-Fang Coatl are durdly outside the combo and take up deck space. So you end up running more good cards, less combo durdle. The above combo package is minimal other than Recruiter. However it needs white mana.

If you want to stay in BUG with the Natural Order package then it's hard to make room for white mana. But you could still run Bowmasters and do the combos with Cavern Harpy and Uro. Bowmasters is a strong card in general so it should make the deck better.

[Weapon X]

No bowmasters this week.

Lab man over oracle because I can respond with more things to win if needed. Lot of things draw cards in the deck and I can use draw step if needed.

I had bowmasters in but was trying to make sure I had enough blue and green cards. List certainly isn’t optimized. I even had living wish for a bit but felt that hindered the straight beat down plan.

Playing this list made me miss 4+ color lists for the combo side. Being BUG made the no combo plan feel stronger. Recruiter, nambi, etc are great for the aluren half, but only the aluren half. Acererack was an option as well and fits the other sides better. Other colours may be a reason for living wish to keep the Nic fit side.

[FTW]

Lab man over oracle because I can respond with more things to win if needed. Lot of things draw cards in the deck and I can use draw step if needed

Oracle can do that too
Harpy (return Oracle) -> replay Oracle

Can repeat as often as needed. Harpy gives full stack control once you've padded your life with Uro draws

The NO plan seems strong but does pull the deck in a slightly different direction. NO and Atraxa are not good with Aluren, and Cavern Harpy stuff is not good with NO, and you can only run so many 2GG cards. If the NO plan is stronger you could just play 3 NOs to be more consistent and drop Aluren copies to make it a plan B?

You're lucky your local meta has no Bowmasters because it could be punishing for an Aluren build like this (less punishing to the NO side or the Recruiter combo).

[Weapon X]

I’m not relying on harpy. Brainstorm can win with lab man. Draw step wins with lab man. Etc. Played too many games in the past where things happen in response to harpy.

This week there were no bowmasters. But low turn out due to weather as well probably played a factor.

[FTW]

How do you win with Lab Man without Harpy?

Empty library requires Harpy to combo draw with Coatl/Uro.

How often are you getting to a Lab Man win where opponent has some way to disrupt Harpy but didn't stop you from drawing your deck and getting 3 Forces + Endurance in hand?

Something like Dress Down can really punish Lab Man, making you lose the game instead of win (draw from empty library with ability removed). You have to make yourself vulnerable by putting "draw" on the stack with empty library.

With Thassa+Harpy you can bounce & "win the game" again in response multiple times, without putting any "lose the game" scenarios on the stack.

[Weapon X]

Because every other card can draw you won’t get choked on harpy lines. With lab man or thoracle the win point has you needing harpy to get there. That’s also where interaction can happen and where labman doesn’t need harpy. Every other card puts a win on the stack. The combo looses to creature removal as much as just counters. I’ve had to play around that stuff in the past and cards have only gotten better. It’s also why I want to have aluren be secondary to beat down/ natural order.